Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Welcome, my outside the box thinkers to the anti aging Unraveled podcast where I am your host, Doctor Lori Gerber. In this podcast, we will explore the fascinating world of personalized anti aging medicine that considers the whole person inside and out, and how all systems are interconnected to each other. In today's world of modern medicine, we often find ourselves like just another number in a system that prioritizes quick fixes over sustainable and more natural solutions. Well, let's get ready for a paradigm shift in health and beauty. We look far beyond treating symptoms and aim to get to the root cause of our health and cosmetic issues. This podcast is your go to source for all things natural, outside the box, and innovative in integrative medicine and cosmetic dermatology. So sit back, relax, and get ready to dive deep into the world of functional medicine and aesthetics. With me, doctor Lori Gerberae. Let's take a trip down the real skin revolution pathway together.
[00:01:05] Hi guys, it's Doctor Lori and I am back for another episode of anti aging unraveled. I'm so excited to be here with you guys, and I know it's been a while since we've put out a podcast. I've had a lot going on and some things just get in the way and I can't record, but I'm really happy to be back. So without letting you guys wonder what the next topic is, I want to talk a little bit about what the difference is between traditional low thyroid or hypothyroidism and hashimoto's thyroid disease. And Hashimoto's is a funny name, but it's actually named after, as most things are, of the person that founded it and figured it out. And traditional hypothyroidism does not involve what we would call antibody production, whereas Hashimoto's thyroid disease does. That is the major difference. Hashimoto's is an autoimmune thyroid condition that is caused by usually your body starts making antibodies and they start fighting your thyroid. It's usually starts an underactive thyroid, but at times it can actually create high or overactive thyroid disease. And it is the most common cause of hypothyroidism that there is, and it's only becoming more and more prevalent. And traditional hypothyroidism is really a broad medical condition. It can be anything that makes the thyroid underactive. So insufficient production of hormones can be from Hashimoto's, it can be from medication induced low thyroid radiation therapy, or having your thyroid gland removed or even iodine deficiency, especially around the world that can be a big problem. So when we kind of talk about the differences, really, hashimoto's is a subset of low thyroid disease function. All right, so how the thyroid works. The thyroid gland produces two hormones, specifically t three and t four. Many of you have not heard of these because our primary docs do not really check a lot of t three s and t four s. It's mostly just a tsh. So as things start to progress in the integrative world, we're starting to see more and more t three and t four being checked. It makes me so happy because t four is the inactive hormone, it needs to be converted to active hormone, or t three. T three is what biologically is the most active. So it regulates metabolism and helps with heart rate, body temperature, digestion. It also plays a really big role in brain and sexual development. So low thyroid disease can be a huge problem, especially in young kids that develop early autoimmune disease or even just early hypothyroidism in adults as well. Obviously, weight gain we're gonna talk about is one of the most common things that I get complaints about. But t three and t four are really the ones that are responsible for this. The release of thyroid hormones is regulated by another hormone, which is more commonly checked by our primaries, and that is TSH. TSH is produced by the pituitary gland. It's located underneath the brain. And the pituitary gland, I call it one of the master hormones, is regulated by the hypothalamus, again, another part of the brain. So there are lots of ways to get a trickle down or a trigger effect if it's not just the thyroid that's the problem. So we can have thyroid disease that's caused by a pituitary problem, hypothalamic problem, or the actual thyroid gland, or deficiencies in some medications on vitamins like we talked about. So primary hypothyroidism is when the gland itself is not producing, it can occur from Hashimoto's. Like, we're going to talk about radioactive or iodine therapy, removal radiation, iodine deficiency, and actually can be congenital where you don't have a basically a thyroid production or you don't have a good formulation of your thyroid, and that is a congenital thyroid dysplasia. Secondary thyroid disease can come from the things that I talked about above the thyroid. So the pituitary and the hypothalamus, so they can be also called tertiary. If it's hypothalamus, pituitary will be secondary. So I always say that they're like master hormone regulators, and if there's something wrong up there, they trickle down to the hormones below them, the thyroid being one of them. So let's specify what happens in Hashimoto's disease. Specifically, as the disease progresses, our body actually will destroy our own thyroid gland. Okay? So we get poor tolerance to heat and cold, weight gain, fatigue, lethargy, constipation, thinning hair, dull, dry skin. I always say dry all over. Menstrual irregularities, body aches, joint pains, mood swings, depression, you name it, really. Thyroid can actually affect it.
[00:05:45] The inflammation of that thyroid gland can actually make it enlarged. And sometimes it actually called it a goiter. And goiter will actually cause difficulty swallowing, hoarseness of the voice, trouble breathing, cosmetic issues, obviously. Now, goiters were much more common before iodine in food, but I do have a podcast on the removal of iodine as a preservative and what that kind of did for our population. And there was a surge in thyroid disease. So I think what you'll find is it's very interesting. You know, we changed the preservatives in our foods, what happened to our bodies, and then what happened in pharma to come out with basically the first thyroid replacement, which was t four or synthroid, which at one time was, what? The most prescribed drug in the country. You know, there's a whole history lesson there and an interesting kind of podcast. The beginning of my podcast is probably a couple of years ago, but when the autoimmune attack continues and you continually fight your thyroid, you can actually get almost like an overactive thyroid where you can get palpitations, you can get increased sweating, increased intolerance to heat, tremors, irritability, anxiety, difficulty sleeping. Again, those menstrual disturbances, low libido, and weight loss. So, again, it's almost like you have this autoimmune attack that gives you a hyperthyroidism, and then over time, becomes underactive because you fight so much of the thyroid that it basically starts to not be functional.
[00:07:14] And Hashimoto's is a diagnosis of lab work. Okay, most of our primaries, they need to understand, we need to draw antibody levels. T four and t three. Okay, if we don't see antibody levels, we can't call it hashimoto's. So it is covered by your insurance. You can request that I highly encourage my patients to ask for a full thyroid panel, including antibodies t three and t four. You do have a right to actually request it, and it should be relatively easy for a primary to order for you on a yearly basis, even if you have to do self pay, it is an immune problem. Okay, there are several things that we're going to talk about that will drive the immune system to not behave appropriately. But the immune system is usually designed to attack normal things like bacteria, virus, fungi. In hashimoto's, the immune system attacks the thyroid, and you get an accumulation of inflammation cells that cause destruction and scarring of that thyroid, decreasing its function over time. The damaged gland just can't produce enough thyroid hormone, and that's why it's such a progressive disorder. If we catch things early, we can stop the progression, and that's really the key to this whole podcast. But in general, much more common. In females, about four to ten times more commonly affected. You can have a genetic predisposition towards this. So a genetic link usually is around 30 to 50 years old, although in mine I started a little bit younger. I think it's more common with food sensitivities to start younger.
[00:08:51] Other autoimmune conditions, rheumatoid, celiac, diabetes, things that actually will drive the immune system to misbehave. It's much more common. And then as we're going to talk about certain viruses, bacteria, hepatitis, and other things can cause hashimoto's. And it's often misdiagnosed because it's so gradual, and there's such a fluctuation in these hormones, because sometimes they start high and then they go down. That really just testing at CSH, and sometimes even a t three, t four can't elicit a positive diagnosis. We need those antibodies with the symptoms. For me, antibodies equals disease. Antibodies to your thyroid are not normal, and once you start producing them, it's a problem. We need to stop that in its tracks. So, what do we need to order? TpO and thyroglobin antibodies? An ultrasound if your antibodies are positive. I like to see if there's nodules or obviously we want to look for cancers or other things. And we can see signs of autoimmunity in the thyroid or the goiter on ultrasound, so we can see signs and symptoms of hashimoto's watchful waiting. This is my biggest kind of pet peeve in medicine. If you have antibodies, oh, well, your thyroid levels are normal. We're going to watch and wait. This is not an appropriate therapy, in my opinion. All we're doing is letting your body attack your thyroid, and seeing when it finally becomes underactive, we can actually do things to prevent the destruction of this thyroid. And that goes back to really, the three things that I like to say are my core principles or three big buckets that can potentially cause autoimmunity and inflammation.
[00:10:35] One is food sensitivities.
[00:10:39] Two is chronic bug or underlying infection. And three is toxic exposures, pesticides, plastics, anything that can accumulate in the system that shouldn't be there. So many of us have food sensitivities that go ignored or not addressed. And many of us have chronic bug and toxic exposures that we don't know are there. These are three things that are relatively easy for us to control. So when we treat these things, we can actually prevent the progression of hashimoto's thyroid antibodies. Okay. Obviously with low thyroid in general, we're going to treat it with a couple of different things. T four, or a variation of synthroid or levothyroxine, is inactive thyroid hormone. It's not active. So many people that go on this by itself don't ever feel better, don't ever lose weight, don't ever get rid of their symptoms. Their tsh gets better, but they never make enough t three or we never shut down their antibodies, so they never feel adequate. Tirosint is a clean, liquid version of t four that I love with one added ingredient. Especially for my hashimoto's patients. You don't have the autoimmune response. It's going to happen to gluten and the binding agents that are in a lot of the synthroid or levothyroxine. There's t three. T three is called cytomel. It's an active form of t three. I'm hoping we have a clean version at some point in the future. Right now there are some binding agents in it. However, it's really good to get those active thyroid levels up and get people's symptoms to come down. Inactive t four thyroid hormone has to convert to t three. In many people, this is not done very well. And in order to do that more effectively, we give people a couple of supplements.
[00:12:25] Methylated b twelve. Methylated is the key word in that. Vitamin D three with k two, usually 5000 ius and some iodine. All of those help to increase our natural production of t three from t four. It will also help people that are Hashimoto's and non Hashimoto's. Low thyroid. There's two thyroid replacements that you need to be careful with if you're diagnosed with Hashimoto's, but I love them. For lots of patients, including Hashimoto's, at times, those are armor thyroid or NP. Thyroid is another name of a brand and glandular extracts that are supplements. Both of these are basically extracts from animals. The armor is a pig extract that is put into a physiologic concentration of thyroid glands. They literally take the thyroid gland from a pig and they put it into a capsule, a great, great product. Again, it does have some binding agents and fillers for your sensitive patients that will make antibodies to gluten, specifically, and other things. The glandular extract that's a supplement is all New Zealand bovine extracts.
[00:13:33] They're basically, you take it out of the animal, they put it into a capsule, as a desiccated capsule, and our body will use that as a natural thyroid replacement. That thyroid replacement, both of those have a tendency towards your body, finding it as foreign, just like your own natural thyroid hormone, and it will create an autoimmune process. So not everybody does well with these products. Depending on how turned on your immune system is, it might actually trigger a further autoimmune response. Again, we have that b twelve, that vitamin D, and that iodine on board to help with conversion. And, you know, I'm not a really big believer on looking at seeing antibodies or seeing t three and t four that are low on the, what I would call the bell shaped curve, and not treating this. If you're subacutely low thyroid and your t three and t four sit on the low end of normal or even low in general, I'm a big believer in making sure that you replace those. That shows me that your immune system and your thyroid may not be working in harmony together, and we should get on top of it sooner than later. Now, let's talk about this food situation. So the food sensitivity, the common things being common, I usually will eliminate gluten and dairy first, give it a good solid six weeks. See if you can get this thyroid to kind of bounce back or even take some of the inflammation down in the system and or the antibodies down. The key is to get the antibodies to a low enough level. The immune system is right on the other side of the gut. It's called the malt lymphatic system. And as soon as there's a disruption in that gut, the lymphatic system gets turned on. And it's like a leaky gut phenomenon, which I hate the term, but it really just means that our body is becoming reactive to things that it shouldn't be, including foods. And then the next natural step in that process is to become autoimmune or fight our own body. Thyroid being the most common. We usually treat with gut powders that have glutamine and slippery elm and calming agents to heal up the inside of the gut. And that lining, that lining is like eczema of the stomach. So we want to chill that out a little bit. We also give you things to break your foods down more efficiently and make all those particles smaller with digestive enzymes. Those enzymes are going to help you break your foods down where you might already have sensitivities, or that you're just not breaking them down efficiently and help them pass through the system.
[00:16:02] We use spore based probiotics to help get rid of the bad bacteria, specifically in the small intestine. And last but not least, bovine colostrum, which everybody is into right now on social media. Bovine colostrum antibodies are a natural antibody. Think about it like an allergy shot. We're giving you nice, healthy antibodies to things so that your body stops overproducing and your immune system works more efficiently. So we use that. It's called igg in our world. It's called immunogenics, and I love it for people that are making antibodies to self or autoimmune. I'm also a big fan of doing a full, or at least as full as I can do with regular labs. Bug workup. That bug workup is checking for strep and staph and mycoplasma, pneumonia and lyme. Some bugs that basically love to do what we call molecular mimicry love this. So interesting. But bugs will actually put off an antigen or a foreign material that looks like our body intentionally, so that our body will fight this antigen with antibodies, but those antibodies actually will fight ourself as well. In doing so, it basically deflects away from the bug so that we don't kill the bug. It's an extremely successful and innovative way for a bug to hide and go into hiding. And that is one massive trigger of autoimmune disease. And as we know, there's some bugs that actually downline cause cancers as well. So we want to shut these down and get your immune system working on all cylinders. And we do this by treating the bug. We get the immune system supported with immunogenics. I love silver. I love biocidin, another natural herbal anti inflammatory, antibacterial antiviral. We use a lot of quintessence, another japanese way herb to kill off bugs, also something called cryptoleptis. So we have a lot of natural compounds at our disposal to actually treat these bugs. Artemisinin is another one, so they're all on our website. I'm more than happy to help people that think that they have a chronic infection or a parasite, even that can drive it as well. We do parasite testing as well, so we can look at this, we can treat it, we can get the immune system calmed down and hopefully shut down or at least halt the autoimmune response from progressing.
[00:18:29] Bottom line, guys, advocate for your own thyroid health. Request all of the thyroid numbers that I talked about. T three, t four, and I like a total free t three and a total t four. I want to know all the inactive t four that you have to basically use and the active t three that you're creating that's available.
[00:18:48] Tsh, tpon, thyroglobulin antibodies, b twelve, vitamin d three and iodine levels. They will give us a really good idea and a really good start of where to go with your thyroid. And there's so many ways that you can take control of this yourself. Anti inflammatory diets, low gluten, low dairy, getting on some of those supplements, the b twelve, the d three, even a little bit of iodine on your own and actually asking and being an advocate for your own thyroid health so that we can actually find out what's going on with you and looking for bugs or at least even treating your immune system like there's something there to suppress any bugs that might be going on. Avoiding the plastics, trying to use glass, washing your fruits and vegetables with like a, basically like a pesticide rinse, buying your dirty dozen organic so they don't have sprays, and obviously trying to eat organic meats. Do the things you can, paraben free topicals to try to avoid the chemical exposures. All of those will help to decrease your autoimmune response and not only help your autoimmune thyroid, but help other autoimmune diseases. Rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, lupus. There's a number of them, but these all fall into the same three buckets. Food sensitivities, bug exposures. All right, guys, I know that was a lot a mouthful, but please be an advocate for your own health and your own thyroid. If you have questions, please reach out on mydoctorlorie.com or you can just email me at info at my doctorspelledoutlorie.com dot. I'd be happy to give you information. There's an intake on our website that you can actually get started today and we can give you a rapid intake which just gives you recommendations on supplements and things to take to help your system and doesn't even involve lab work. We'd love to have you on board as part of our doctor Laurie family and just encourage you guys to be well and be your own advocates.
